Posts filed under ‘Formation’

The Oregon Creative Industries Board of Directors approved the organization’s Bylaws at our May meeting, a milestone in our legal formation as an Oregon nonprofit corporation governed by an industry Board of Directors. The next step in the formation process is to establish our tax-exempt status with the IRS.

This structure will help facilitate our mission to take an ecosystem approach to growing the regional creative economy via a focus on promotion, advocacy and networking.

OCI Board of Directors List

Our Board of Directors is now 17 members strong and growing. Current Board members as of the passing of the Bylaws are:

Dylan Boyd (Urban Airship), Software Industry Representative

Michael Cohen (Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt), Legal Counsel

David Cress (Film & Television Producer, Portlandia and many others), Film & Video Representative

After recruiting and leading a couple of non-profit Boards over the past six years, I learned a lot and was able to leverage that experience while recruiting the Oregon Creative Industries (OCI) Board of Directors this year. Here are the traits I was looking for in the first wave of Board members who will become the active working core of the organization:

Passion for OCI’s vision of building an alliance of leaders & organizations within the creative ecosystem to help grow the creative economy.

As you can see by the Board bios below, I found all of this and much more. This is a talented group of experienced creative economy leaders who will get the job done and in the process attract the additional leaders, volunteers and supporters needed to establish a sustainable community-based non-profit organization.

We held our inaugural Board meeting on August 6th and agreed as a group that the first order of business is to conduct a Board strategy development session to refine OCI’s vision, mission, objectives and initial priority initiatives.

Here is the initial roster of OCI Board members (more will be recruited), with Board role indicated after each name:

Editor’s Note [03/08/11]: Two additional Board members have joined since the update below: David Cress, film/television producer (including “Portlandia”) and Dylan Boyd, VP of Growth for mobile software company Urban Airship.

Editor’s Note [09-08-10]: Two new Board members have been added since this post was written: Aaron Tersteeg, Community Manager for Intel Software and Julie Williamson, Career Services Director at the Art Institute of Portland.

Michael Cohen (Legal Counsel) is a shareholder with the Portland-based law firm Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt, PC. He has a litigation and transactional practice with particular emphasis on intellectual property legal issues concerning the creative industries. His practice is comprised of patent, trademark and copyright licensing; counseling, prosecution, enforcement and litigation of trademark, trade dress, trade secret and copyright rights; technology transfer; IP due diligence for mergers and acquisitions; internet/e-commerce counseling; domain name and website issues; and entertainment, media and advertising law, including negotiating and enforcing book, music and movie deals and royalty agreements. His clients include some of the most well-known apparel and footwear companies, winemakers, musicians and recordings artists, authors, television and radio personalities, and other companies and individuals involved in Oregon’s Creative Economy. He has been recognized by his peers as an Oregon “Super Lawyer” in Intellectual Property law by Law & Politics each year from 2006-2010 and received the Portland Business Journal‘s “Forty Under 40” award recognizing individuals who have shown exceptional achievement in their careers, and in their community and civic activities.

Julie Duryea (Networking Chair) is Founder and Owner of souk, Portland’s first coworking space in Old Town Chinatown which opened in January 2007. Her professional experience is a hybrid of private and public sector work beginning with Bain & Company, and including non-profit work with The Bus Project in Portland, Yoga for Youth in Los Angeles, and teaching high school in South Central. Julie is passionate about supporting entrepreneurs, creatives, and, in particular, female business owners. Most recently, she is consulting with MercyCorps Northwest Women’s Business Center to develop top-notch programming for the PNW.

Paul Evers (Regional Liaison – Central Oregon) founded Bend-based ad agency, tbd, in 1997. He began his career in advertising as a designer at Holzman Advertising & Design in Irvine, California. He went on to become art director for Ingram Micro in Santa Ana, California, where he led the creative team to produce marketing communications ideas for Apple, Adobe, IBM, Microsoft, Aldus and Macromedia. Then Paul relocated his family to Bend in the early nineties to become senior art director at The Mandala Agency before launching the tbd adventure more than a decade ago. Along the way, he’s been recognized with numerous local, national and international design and advertising awards for clients such as Deschutes Brewery, Mt. Bachelor, Oregon Chai and the Old Mill District. He’s mentored, befriended and inspired the evolving tbd team, and, perhaps most surprisingly, has effectively demonstrated a belief in the attainability of a well-balanced life.

Steve Gehlen (Board President) has been the top Internet executive at companies such as Nike, Digimarc, Hollywood Entertainment Corp. and OHSU. He is currently the General Manager of Global eCommerce at Icebreaker Nature Clothing, an activewear company. Steve has produced several thought-leader conferences at the intersection of creativity and technology, including the Portland Creative Conference, Internet Strategy Forum Summit and Inverge: the interactive convergence conference. Prior to co-founding Oregon Creative Industries, Steve held leadership positions with several other non-profits including Founder & Executive Director of the Internet Strategy Forum, a national association for corporate Internet executives, Founder & Executive Director of Keeping the Beat, which provides funding for K-12 arts education programs, founding Advisory Board member of the Oregon Multimedia Alliance (later merged with the Software Association of Oregon) and Board Member of the Portland Creative Conference. A musician and songwriter since age 15, Steve also co-founded and produced the American Roots Music Festival. Steve also has extensive live theater experience, doing sound design and/or sound operation for over 20 shows, and taught sound design for theater to high school-age students at the now-defunct Argonauts School of the Arts. Steve double-majored in Telecommunications & Film (mass media studies) and Computer Science at the University of Oregon.

Jennifer Green (Board Secretary & Program Chair – Creative Economy Council) has worked deep within Portland’s creative industry starting out on the fine art side at Oregon College of Art & Craft. From there she was director of the Portland office of Creative Assets (now Filter Talent), working with a range of talent and many of the creative shops in Portland. She managed operations at Rain Agency, recruited footwear and product designers at Nike, and worked as a consultant at Scruggs & Associates, a company that helps organizations and regions assess their economy and workforce, identify comparative advantages, and develop actions to seize growth opportunities in a knowledge economy. She is an instructor and was a social media coordinator at Portland State University and is the partnership chair at AIGA (Portland). Ms. Green received her BFA in photography and video from the Kansas City Art Institute.

Eric Hillerns (Research Chair) was the Creative Director at Verse Digital Design Group prior to forming Collective Incorporated in 1997. He later evolved that concern to become Pinch, a Design Office in Portland. Hillerns studied journalism at Blair Academy and Princeton University and architecture at The University of Idaho at Moscow. His experience in working with startups to Fortune 100 firms has defined his counsel in approaching business issues through the considered development of brand identity, information systems, exhibit design, and social media. He currently serves on the executive board of directors for AIGA Portland and is the chapter’s representative to AIGA’s Center for Sustainable Design. An advocate for regional design, he created Designspeaks, a small-talks series dedicated to advancing the conversation about design in the Pacific Northwest. He is on the board of Re: Active, a projects-based design education program for underserved youth, and is a collective founder of The New Communicators; a collaborative convergence intended to explore the evolution of discussion. Hillerns writes extensively about design as a process and contributes to juried exhibitions and panel discussions on the subjects of speculative work and the role of design in society. He’s a member of ICOGRADA and Type Directors Club (TDC). And while he’d much prefer being on the river to writing about it, Hillerns is the Conservation Editor for Westfly, an online journal serving the western fly fishing community.

Jerry Ketel (Promotions Chair) is an active member of Portland’s creative community, having worked as a writer, designer and marketer for over 30 years. Until recently, he was the President, Executive Creative Director and Founder of Leopold Ketel & Partners, winning many advertising industry accolades along the way. Having retired from advertising, he is focusing on his passion of leading and teaching creativity and innovation in the public and private sectors.

Tad Lukasik (Director of Industry Information) is the current principal for Mandalia Productions, LLC and Co-founder of Oregon Creative Industries. He is a proven leader, problem solver and innovator with 24 years of professional experience including 15 years in the demanding media industry. His project credit depth is over 1180 to-date which includes sports, health care, gaming, automotive, emerging new media and technology companies – Nintendo, Intel, Nike, US Air, Taco Time, Fred Meyer, Ron Tonkin, Legacy Health Systems, Nikon, United Way and more. Tad’s additional professional background includes management experience in the real estate, hospitality and fitness industries and overall he specializes in small business foundation building and helping to grow companies in transition. Tad maintains a portfolio of accomplishments and leadership awards built throughout his education and professional career. He holds a BS from Oregon State University and is an honors graduate of the Air National Guard Technical Training School.

Shane Sasnow (Partnerships Chair) is the owner and founder of Forward Motion. He is a facilitator, trainer, and consultant specializing in strategic planning, innovation, and creativity. Examples of his current include working with the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability as the facilitation planner for the Portland Plan Advisory Group, facilitating innovation design labs for the Public Strategies Group, facilitating strategic planning for non-profits, and A/V support services with the Creative Education Foundation’s Creative Problem Solving Institute annual conference. He received his BA from the University of Washington in Creative Processes and his Masters of Science in Creativity, Problem Solving, and Change Leadership. His early career was in music, teaching, and graphic design and he is currently a co-lead singer in the rock and roll cover band Rock Residue.

Brad Smith (Program Chair – Industry Calendar) is the executive director of WebVisions, a nationally recognized conference that has explored the future of web design, technology and business strategy since 2001. He founded the DevGroup NW, an association for multimedia and Internet professionals, was president of the Oregon Media Production Association from 1998-2000, is a former board member for the Portland Advertising Foundation. Brad is also the president and founder of Hot Pepper Studios, an award-winning design firm based in Portland, Oregon.

Dave Sullivan (Finance) has more than 25 years experience in marketing, business development, and corporate communications. Dave has had an eclectic, colorful career from TV anchor guy to a unconventional shareholder of an accounting firm. One shared goal, his time has always been geared toward helping people and companies get famous and wildly successful. In a nutshell, Dave has gone from providing commercial production work for local corporate giants, to earning their accounting business. Before joining Perkins & Co he was a partner and manager of a national marketing and business consulting company, Marketing Clarity. Dave has many years of experience on the media side of the marketing business. He was general manager and executive producer at MIRA Creative Group, a multi-million dollar corporate communications company specializing in film and video. Dave began his career as a television journalist including a sports anchor position at a KGW-TV in Portland and he was an on-air co-host of the nightly syndicated program, PM Magazine. Dave graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Oregon, and currently serves on the board of the alumni association. He is also on the membership committees for the Software Association of Oregon and Greenlight Greater Portland, and is the honorary chair of the American Cancer Society Hope Ball.

Brent Urbanski (Program Director – Industry Directory) is an accomplished graphic designer and art director with over a decade of experience in a variety of disciplines. He is currently operating as an independent designer, specializing in visual identity design. Throughout his career, Brent has helped create identities for many successful brands and their products. While his background and client list primarily consists of athletic and culture-driven brands, he has recently started to broaden his client base. Generally speaking, he’s looking to work on a variety of projects with good people who care about design and enjoy what they do. Brent also helps develop connections between the buyers and providers of creative services in the Portland, Oregon area. He has built the PortlandCreativeList(.com) to aid in the marketing and communications efforts of Portland’s creative service businesses.

Same Legal and Accounting Team that formed Greenlight Greater Portland is on-board to form Oregon Creative Industries

The process of forming Oregon Creative Industries (OCI) as a new non-profit business alliance has been deliberate and methodical. We are building an organization to last so it can have a true impact on growing the creative economy in this state and rushing into it could set us up for failure.

Based on my past experience founding other non-profits, I’ve learned that starting with a high-quality legal and accounting team who are 100% on-board with and experienced in your mission is an essential foundational component.

Because OCI’s core mission is economic development for creative industries, our goal was to partner with a legal firm and an accounting firm who have demonstrated success in both of those areas.

I’m happy to report that we’ve found exactly what we were looking for because Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt have joined as our legal team and Perkins & Co. will provide our accounting support. These firms are at the top of their game in the Northwest and both are listed among the Portland Business Journal’s Most Admired Companies and Oregon Business Magazine’s Top 100 Companies.

This is the same legal/accounting team that founded Greenlight Greater Portland, the regional economic development organization. Both firms have strong creative industries-related practices and clients, so they understand the creative economy ecosystem and will also be helpful making important connections for OCI.

In short, we couldn’t ask for better partners to start this journey with.

With this team in place we are already underway with the necessary steps to forming the OCI legal entity, which will be an Oregon Nonprofit Corporation with Federal 501(c)(6) tax-exempt status.

I’d like to thank Don Krahmer of Schwabe and Dave Sullivan of Perkins, both of whom I have had the pleasure of knowing for over 15 years, for being the internal champions for OCI within their respective companies.

October 8, 2009 was an exciting day for Oregon Creative Industries! Gathering at the offices of AIA in the Pearl, were staff and board members from the associations that support major sectors within the Creative Economy in Oregon: IIDA, AMA, AIA, ASMP, PAF, WAN, IABC, AIGA, IDSA, IDC, OMPA, Art in the Pearl and DevGroup NW. All but one of our State’s 14 Creative Industries verticals were represented.

The order of business for this meeting, the big question: Do we want to move forward as an organized Creative Economy cluster? To do this would mean forming a new 501(c)6 non-profit trade association called Oregon Creative Industries to support the core missions as established from conversations and roundtables with the community and detailed in the draft Oregon Creative Industries proposal published in February of this year. The core missions are networking, promotion and advocacy as related to economic development of our cluster.

Jerry Ketel of Leopold Ketel & Partners and President of the Board of PAF made a motion to vote on the forming of this organization. The vote was unanimous! During this meeting an OCI working group called Creative Economy Council (CEC) was also formed, made up of association leadership.

There was a great energy around the table as all of the associations pulled together to support this initiative and those three core elements. The next step, the meeting at City Hall with city officials and Portland Development Commission. It was agreed that as a show of support and true collaboration all would attend this meeting at City Hall to present some of the findings from previous roundtable discussions and the proposal for the formation of the trade association, Oregon Creative Industries.

There is still a lot of work to be done. We look forward to future collaborative efforts that we know will strengthen the mission and goals of all involved. Stay tuned!!